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MotoGP Austria: Lorenzo beats Marquez in Austrian duel

Author: Aaron Rowles

Jorge Lorenzo beat Marc Marquez in an epic battle around the Red Bull Ring to win his third MotoGP race of 2018.

Starting from the outside of the front row, despite not leading into the first corner, the Spaniard found himself leading after Marc Marquez ran hot into turn three forcing early leader and pole sitter Andrea Dovizioso wide. However, just one lap later Marquez went under Lorenzo into turn three to take the lead.

Marquez who had elected to run a hard-hard tyre combination had hoped to push Lorenzo’s soft-soft combination into submission with a string of blistering laps in the early stages of the race. By the half race stage Marquez had a gap of around a second from Lorenzo who appeared to be holding his team-mate up.

However, when the race entered its second half, Lorenzo managed to edge closer to the leader and eventually closed the gap right down and took the lead into the first corner with 10 laps to go. In the same move, Dovizioso was pushed wide and lost over a second to the front two.

Lorenzo’s lead lasted one corner as Marquez moved back past him. The factory Ducati man held sat behind the World Champion for six laps which saw the first two drop Dovi. With just over three laps to go, Lorenzo made an extremely aggressive pass on Marquez into the downhill turn nine, nearly forcing Marquez off the track. The Honda man then lined Lorenzo up and repaid the favour in his usual spot in turn three with an equally aggressive move.

Going into the final lap Lorenzo moved under Marquez going into turn one and then took a started the drag up to turn three and braced himself for an attack from Marquez. Marquez retook the lead in turn three but Lorenzo managed to keep his GP18 lit and went back around Marquez and kept hold of the lead. Lorenzo held off a late charge to claim his third win on a Ducati by 0.130 seconds.

Andrea Dovizioso was third but 1.6 seconds behind the front two after his medium compound Michelin tyre didn’t give him the feel he had hoped for in the final five laps.

Cal Crutchlow was the top independent team rider in fourth place on his LCR Honda, albeit a further eight seconds behind Dovizioso. The

Brit was a further four seconds ahead of Petrucci in what ended up being a lonely race for Crutchlow.

Valentino Rossi salvaged sixth position from his disastrous weekend to keep hold of second place in the World Championship with Alex Rins, Johann Zarco and Alvaro Bautista rounding out the top ten.

Tito Rabat was eleventh place on his satellite Ducati, whilst Maverick Vinales miserable season continued with a twelfth place finish. 2016 Austrian Grand Prix winner Andrea Iannone was thirteenth on his GSX-RR Suzuki with the sole KTM of Bradley Smith in fourteenth position. Taka Nakagami rounded out the point scorers, piping Syahrin to fifteenth.

Power delivery the focus for Honda’s WorldSBK effort

Honda Europe’s WorldSBK chief Chris Pike has indicated that working on how the Fireblade delivers its power without the help of electronics is Red Bull-backed team’s focus for the foreseeable future.

Pike, who has done pretty much every job in racing, took over from Italian Marco Chini as Honda’s Superbike point-man and appears pleased with the progress of the SP2 so far.

“Our bike is very good in some areas, we have taken big steps with the switch to Magneti Marelli electronics and also with the chassis developments,” said Pike.

“We need to keep the momentum in these two areas and pick up more on the engine performance, the outright power is not so bad but we need to concentrate on the natural power delivery of the engine and rely less on electronics to smooth it out.

“We have quite a lot of things to test in Portimão, so much that we booked an extra couple of days of track time. We have an two different chassis options to test to get a direction for 2019, Akrapovič have built a new exhaust system for the Red Bull Honda CBR1000RR and there are some quite significant electronic upgrades to try.

“We also have a brand new engine specification to try out, so it’s fair to say that the team will be busy during the upcoming tests.”

Women’s Day thriller for Cape Superbikes

DAVE ABRAHAMS

David McFadden won both Superbike races on the Stunt SA/RPM Centre ZX-10R. Picture: Dave Abrahams

Cape Town – Round 6 of the RST/Trac Mac/Suzuki South regional motorcycle series at Killarney on 9 August delivered all the drama fans could have wished for, with ultra-close racing, spectacular tumbles (thankfully without any serious injuries) a red flag and a championship wrapped with two rounds still to go.

And, it being Women’s Day, a special salute to the three ladies who were out there proving that speed is not exclusively a guy thing.

Nevertheless, the two superbike races were dominated by David McFadden and the StuntSA/RPM ZX-10R, although he was made to work very hard for it in Race 1 by the Haupt brothers, Brandon and Bernard, on the Fuelled Racing R1s, Trevor Westman’s Mad Mac’s ZX-10R and Gerrit Visser on the Samurai R1.

McFadden got a bad start, and was fourth behind Brandon Haupt (who was suffering from a bad cold), Westman and Bernard Haupt at the end of lap one. Bernard briefly took the lead on lap three but then ran very, very wide on lap 4 and dropped down to ninth, leaving his brother to hold off Westman, McFadden and Visser.

A lap later, however, McFadden blasted past both Westman and Haupt to go to the front of the four-bike leading train – but there was more drama just behind them.

Hayden Jonas on the Samurai R6 and Jared Schultz (Uncle Andy/ASAP World GSX-R600) and Brandon Staffen (AJH Cooling/RPM ZX-6R) were battling it out for line honours in the Super600 class when Jonas and Schultz collided going into Turn 2. Both went down; Jonas was able to rejoin, stone last, but Schultz’s Suzuki was too damaged to continue.

That left Staffen unchallenged at the top of the class – and fifth overall; ahead of him, McFadden and Brandon Haupt were getting ready for an epic last-lap showdown when Staffen took a monumental tumble going into Turn 3, bringing out the red flags.

The result was called as at the end of the previous lap however, giving McFadden the win by 0.69s from Brandon Haupt, with Westman and Visser less than 1.5s adrift. Staffen was classified fifth overall and first in Super600, way ahead of Gareth Gehlig (Formula Autos ZX-6R) and Jared Schultz’s father Karl (ASAP World ZX-6R), while Malcolm Rapson took SuperMasters honours in sixth overall.

Race 2

Brandon Haupt’s cold finally got the better of him halfway through the second race, leaving David McFadden to romp home unopposed, winning by almost seven seconds from Westman and Bernard Haupt, who finally made a pass on Visser that stuck on the last lap after a race-long dice.

Jonas came home fifth overall, clinching the 600cc title for the fourth consecutive year with four races to go; he’s hoping to move up to the Superbike class for the remainder of this season, in preparation for an attempt on the Regional title in 2019.

Andre Calvert didn’t qualify on the Omega Property 1299S due to a steering damper problem, started from the back of the grid in both races and put in two superb rides to finish eighth in both outings.

Powersports

Chris Williams (Trac Mac ER650), Mike van Rensburg (Simple Maintenance Solutions ER650) and up-and-coming racer Ezio Miglietta (Kawasaki ER650) delivered a master class in one-make racing in the first Powersport outing, although Miglietta dropped back at the end to finish third, while Van Rensburg chased Williams all the way to the line in the closest finish of the day – just 0.053s.

Kewyn Snyman on the Mag Workshop RC390 finished fifth overall and well ahead of Powersport B rivals Connor Hagen (NPH Electrical RC390) and Zante Otto (Otto Racing R3) who put up a race-long dice for second in class.

Sadly, the chain of Snyman’s KTM broke while he was running fifth, on lap five of Race 2 – but almost nobody noticed because ahead of him Williams, Van Rensburg, Joske Kotze (Suzuki SV650) and Miglietta were involved in the dice of the day, a four-way thriller which ended in that order, covered by just 1.635s. Hagen and Otto, meanwhile, settled the junior Powersport class between them.

Zante Otto (Otto Racing R3) finished second for the day in Powersport B. Picture: Dave Abrahams

Clubpersons

Williams also took the honours in both Clubmans races on the Trac Mac Panigale, after two superb duels with Honda SP-2 of Wessell Kruger; top challenger Willem Binedell crashed the Dog Box GSX-R600 out of third in Race 1 and trailed home way down the field in Race 2.

This class was also remarkable for the presence of not one but two ladies – Zandri-Mari Uys on the Art by Zandri/Cane Industries GSX-R600 and rookie Liesl Claassen, riding a Yamaha R6, who finished fourth in Clubmans B and fourth in the Breakfast Run Class respectively.